Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904-1996)

Nigerian politician and president 1963-66. A leading nationalist in the 1940s, he advocated self-government for Nigeria. He was prime minister of Eastern Nigeria 1954-59 and on independence became governor general of the Federation of Nigeria 1960-63. During the civil war triggered by the secession of Biafra 1967-70 he initially backed his own ethnic group, the Ibo, but switched his support to the federal government in 1969.

Leader of the Nigeria People's Party from 1978 until political parties were banned in 1984, he retired from politics in 1986.

Azikiwe was born in Zungeru, Niger state, and educated in the USA. He worked as a newspaper editor in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) from 1934, returning to Nigeria in 1937 to start the West African Pilot in Lagos, where he built up a chain of newspapers. In 1946 he was a founder of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons and acted as its president 1946-60. He was accused of using government funds to save the African Continental Bank in which he held shares in 1956, and was censured by a tribunal. His books, mainly on African nationalism, include Renascent Africa (1937), The African in Ancient and Medieval History (1938), Political Blueprint of Nigeria (1943), and Military Revolution in Nigeria (1972).